Haagen-Dazs Tries to Help Save Honey Bees

Just three months after the Haagen-Dazs brand announced its national Haagen-Dazs loves Honey Bees program and its pledge to donate $250,000 to Pennsylvania State University and the University of California, Davis, to fund sustainable pollination and Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) research, the ice cream brand is following in the apiary tradition of teamwork and announcing several new partnerships with organizations that share the goal of helping honey bees.

The Haagen-Dazs brand has partnered with Pollinator.org, an organization dedicated to preserving the health of honey bees and native pollinators in the U.S. The two organizations will host an "Ice Cream Social on the Hill" in Washington, D.C., during National Pollinator Week, June 22-28, to keep honey bees and America's hardworking and struggling beekeepers top-of-mind for legislators and decision makers.

Also during Pollinator Week, the brand is partnering with the Association of Zoos and Aquariums to provide educational materials and to host a sampling event featuring Haagen-Dazs Vanilla Honey Bee ice cream at the Smithsonian (Washington, D.C.) and Dallas (Texas) zoos.

The Haagen-Dazs brand will also be a sponsor of the A NEW HIVE art installation hosted by Earnest Sewn, taking place at Earnest Sewn's flagship store in New York City, July 2008. The installation will draw New York's attention to the plight of the honey bees via sculpture, drawing, limited edition accessories, bee-culture inspired conceptual fashions, curated antiques, and live specimens. Haagen-Dazs ice cream will be giving out samples of the new Haagen-Dazs Vanilla Honey Bee ice cream flavor and donating educational materials and bee-friendly flower seed packets to attendees and boutique patrons. Proceeds from the event will establish new beehives in New York City public gardens and support educational programs on the importance of bees and the art of beekeeping, as well as research to support sustainable beekeeping practices.

Haagen-Dazs ice cream is also a sponsor of "The Vanishing of the Bees," a work-in-progress documentary that takes an investigative look at the bee crisis.

Honey bees in America are still in trouble. The Apiary Inspectors of
America recently commissioned a survey of U.S. beekeepers to estimate colony losses across the country between September 2007 and 2008 and reported a 14 percent increase in total losses as compared to last year.

To maintain healthy environments for these important pollinators, the
Haagen-Dazs brand is working with community groups throughout the U.S. to distribute one million bee-friendly flower seeds. To date, the Haagen-Dazs brand's million seeds initiative has distributed more than 350,000 seeds and empowered a number of communities to take action in the fight to save the honey bees.

Consumers can do their part to help the honey bee population by creating a bee-friendly garden with plants that attract honey bees, educating neighbors, schools and community groups about the severe situation the honey bees and our food supply are facing, and supporting beekeepers by purchasing locally produced honey. They can also reduce herbicide and pesticide use and help researchers find a solution to CCD and other problems honey bees face by donating funds to leading universities like Penn State University and UC Davis.